He realizes he has an unopened letter from his sister. How long has it been in his drawer? He can hardly remember when he received it. Perhaps a few weeks before. Since then, his mother has written and told him of his sister’s plans, of the happy news. The ceremony will already have taken place. He knew it even when he sat before the boy in the drinking house. He prises open the seal without tearing the envelope. A long letter, several pages, with writing on both sides. My dearest brother Morten, by the time this letter reaches you. It sounds like a suicide note, a thing one might write with the noose hanging ready from the hook in the ceiling. It is a farewell, and the noose is around her neck. The priests stand ready, one at her side, the other at the altar, and the church bells chime. He puts the letter aside without reading to the end.
A week later. The same day of the week. The same snow, though somewhat milder. The boy sits in the same drinking house as before. He seems unsurprised when Morten sits down opposite him at the table.
Evening, sir.
Good evening, my child.
The boy flashes a wry smile.
Does he come to have his fortune told again?
No, not for that. Morten purchases two mugs of ale and shoves one of them across the table. He looks more awake today. He has an odd twitch about his eye. What is it? Sarcasm? A muscular spasm? And that mouth! It is the mouth he has returned for. It is a riddle, a question unanswered. And Morten does not consider himself to be a person who leaves any question unanswered.
Thanks, says the boy, and raises his mug to drink.
You remember me?
You’re my benefactor. You gave me money.
That’s right.
But it was a lot. You’ve got more owed.
Well, we’ll see about that. As I said, I haven’t come to have my fortune told.
I can show you something you’ve never seen, says the boy.
And what might that be? Morten stares at him intently.
The gentleman will be sehr vergnügt und überrascht, says the boy, switching seamlessly into German.
I have seen many things, says Morten. It would take rather a lot to make me vergnügt, and even more for me to be überrascht.
The boy laughs. He does not force the matter. He sits with his trump card, whatever it might be, and is in no hurry to present it.
All right, what is it? Morten asks.
It is what I earn my way by in the winter. There are many gentlemen such as yourself, Pastor.
I’m not one of your gentlemen. My needs are quite normal.
The smile is unchanged, confident.
Then show me, says Morten.
Five marks, says the boy.
Out of the question. Shame on you! Three.
For you, three, says the boy. He rises, pulls down his breeches and looks at Morten with a cheeky grin on his face.
Should I not have seen such a little cock before? It’s hardly worth a skilling.
Silence descends at the counter. Eyes are upon them. The fiddler stops tuning his instrument.
The boy draws up his shirt and his face opens wide in a grin.
Morten jumps to his feet and staggers backwards. His eyes dart up and down as he stares at the figure before him.
My dear girl! he blurts.
Coins rain down on them and the hermaphrodite receives the jubilations of the drinking-house customers with a courteous bow and a chivalrous sweep of his arm. Morten hurries outside, leaving his mug and his plate, fleeing over the encrusted puddles of the gutter with his coat-tails flapping. Laughter erupts in his wake.
The printing press clatters and rumbles below the floor; the compositors slam the lead in the cases and exchange banter. He awakes with all his clothes on, though only one shoe. The rattle of harnesses, clopping hooves and carriage wheels in the street. The bells of Vor Frue Kirke sound every half hour. There is a knock at the door. He gets up and rubs his face. Outside stands the printer’s maid with a note in her hand. He sits down to read it, then crumples it up.
Some days pass. He hides himself from Miss Schultz, sneaks away to his lectures, sneaks home again. And then he is back in the drinking house. The host accords him a nod of recognition and brings him a mug of ale.
A portion of herring, sir?
No, thank you. Not tonight.
He looks around, but cannot see the boy. He has decided to call him the boy, though it is perhaps the girl he desires. Or a third gender, if such a thing makes sense. Perhaps it is merely the biological inadmissibility that interests him so. He has the feeling that what happens tonight, the choices he makes, will decide the rest of his life.
He feels a cold draught from the door behind him, senses the change of mood at the other tables, and knows what it means. The boy appears in his field of vision and sits down opposite him.
Peace of God, he says.
Morten nods. The boy smiles. He snaps his fingers to the host, who comes with ale. Morten stares at him. He can see the girl embedded in his features. But it is the boy who speaks.
My benefactor. You have a fine and noble heart, I can see that. You don’t need to be ashamed.
I am not ashamed. I merely wonder what sort you are.
Come with me to the ramparts, says the boy, and I’ll show you. The cost’s ten marks. When the gentleman’s done with me, he’ll have peace in his soul. He’ll be a good citizen then, and court his girl as duty commands.
The grassy banks are scantly illuminated with light from the windows facing the rampart path. A watchman blocks their way. Morten gives him a few skillings and they are permitted to pass. The boy leads him to a shed. He taps a signal on the door. A bolt is drawn aside and they enter. In a small room a wife sits knitting in the dim glow of a candle. She does not raise her head to look. They go on to the back room into which is crammed a bed and a stove and nothing else.
Does he want light? says the boy.
Yes, he replies. Much light. His pulse throbs in his head. His mouth is dry. Nothing shall be unknown, he tells himself. Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains!
An oil lamp is lit. The boy undresses. He lies down on the bed and looks up at Morten. There is something knowledgeable in his eyes for which he does not care, and the person they know about is him, Morten Falck, the schoolmaster’s son. He stares at the naked body. It is at once a grotesque and titillating sight. He expels an unexpected moan and tries to disguise it with a cough. A hand unbuttons his fly and his member springs forth. The girl laughs in acknowledgement. She strokes it gently, but remains lying on her back.
If he wants to lie with me it costs five marks extra, she says.
My needs are quite normal, says Morten, and expels another moan.
She giggles. So I see, sir. Normal indeed. Her voice is utterly changed. It is the voice of a young girl.
She raises herself up onto her elbow and kisses the underside of his member. Her tongue darts forward, a glimpse of red. It twirls around the head, then retracts between her teeth. Morten sees that she, or the boy, is erect. He bends forward and touches the hard, boyish cock. It feels completely normal. He investigates the scrotum. Both testicles are present and of ordinary size. As far as he can see, there is no sign of female genitals beneath, and the sexual urge is fully that of the male, he notes. His hand jerks the penis, the girl releases him and falls back on the bed. He kneels down beside her and takes it in his mouth, drawing back the foreskin from the head, tongue rotating as he presses the knob against the roof of his mouth, nodding slowly, as though he were pondering the matter. At the same time, his right hand reaches up and fondles the girl’s breast. She arches upwards. A warm liquid fills his mouth. He swallows. The girl flops back down on the bed and rolls onto her side with a stifled moan.
He gets to his feet and studies her. One arms rests over her eyes. It looks like she is sleeping. He smoothes his hand over her
hair.
Then he places two rigsdalers on the pillow and neatens himself, bids the wife a friendly farewell on his way out and returns across the no-man’s-land.
He is back in the city, on his way home, away from the ramparts and the strange part of himself he has left behind. He cannot grasp what has occurred, only that it has made him glad. The snow falls quietly without a breath of wind to disturb it. The white streets glisten in the faint glow of the train-oil lamps that light up the windows. Morten Falck tramps along Studiestræde. Some streets away he hears a watchman sing, a rambling melody from medieval times, though he is unable to pick out the words. The hour must be well past midnight. The pretty tune makes him giddy. He dances a few steps in the virgin snow, twirls a pirouette, draws a circle in the blanket of white with the toe of his boot, sees its powder whirl at his feet. He stops and glances around. No one has seen him. He continues on his way.
Noble sir!
The watchman steps from the shadow of a gateway and raises his hand.
Morten halts, stiffening in mid-pace.
Noble sir, the watchman says again, is he inebriated?
No, Morten replies. He considers the man’s bulbous nose, the bloodshot eyes. But you are! he feels an urge to say.
The watchman stares at him unkindly. Should I light his way home?
Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. My lodgings are only two streets away.
Before the watchman can say any more, he turns down Nørregade and walks briskly on towards the printer’s house.
Nothing shall remain unknown, he tells himself, the greasy taste of hermaphrodite sperm still in his mouth. I wish to know everything before I marry.
February passes, March comes. The snow falls without abatement. It swirls around the steeples and piles up in the gutters and along the walls of the buildings. Peasants and fishermen bring their wares to the city with runners on their carts. The nostrils of the horses expel white columns of frosty steam. The beasts labour, stumble in the slippery streets, whinnying and snorting, depositing excrement in fear. The steam of their breath freezes into beads and garlands of lace in their manes and forelocks. Morten finds it a torment to see the poor animals mistreated. The stables in the city are filled to the brim. Peasants are unable to come home at night or else they lie drunk in the serving houses, leaving their horses tethered to a fence or a stake. Each morning the watchmen discover those that have succumbed in the night, hanging by their heads in the tethers, thin legs splayed to the sides. If the owner turns up he is handed a fine. The carcasses are transported out of the city, to the melting houses of the soap and glue makers, who work around the clock on account of this sudden abundance of raw materials.
But the cold has its advantages. The stench of the gutter, a plague for most of the year, is almost gone. Even when the nightmen come and slop out the buckets there is hardly a smell. Rats and mice have become less of a pest. The eternal gnawing and scratching in the filling of the wall behind Morten’s bedstead quietens, and the bugs vanish into cracks to become dormant. The city smells only of coal and wood smoke, of which Morten is fond, especially when it is mingled with the frosty air. But it is not healthy. It makes him cough, as the whole town resounds with the coughing of its inhabitants. For a fortnight he lies with fever and spits mucus into a bucket at his bed. One of the printer’s maids comes with soup and hot elder syrup and aquavit. She changes his damp sheets and will wash his clothes. There are more messages from the young mistress. He no longer crumples them up. He gathers them in a pile in the drawer of his nightstand. He gives the girl the flacon of lavender to bring to Miss Schultz, and this time it is not returned. He thinks about the boy, or the girl, in the little shed out at the ramparts, the wife who sat knitting without glancing up, the warm liquid in his mouth. Is it something he has imagined in his fever? Or is the fever a punishment for having sinned against nature?
His temperature subsides. He feels the fever leave him. He coughs investigatively. His chest and ribs are sore from all his hacking, but the thick mucus of before is gone. He will not die. His sins are forgiven.
With cautious, testing steps he crosses the yard to eat with the print workers. They greet him kindly and make room for him on the bench. Several have also been ill; one is there no longer. He enquires about the printer’s household. Have they been struck? No, the printer and his family are privileged and may retire to the country, where they can stay isolated from the poisonous and invisible filth of the city air, so all are thankfully in good health. And now they have returned. They glance at him and smile. He stares into his soup.
One day she is in the courtyard as he comes unsteadily from his lunch. Her gaze is firm and bright. She smiles. He nods, hesitates, unable to walk forward or back, and raises a hand in greeting. She goes back inside the house. He sees the heel of her ankle boot as she jaunts up the step and imagines a fragrance emanating in concentric rings from her dainty feet. He thinks of his hand against her skin, against silken garments drawn aside to reveal the animal within, her warmth merging with his cold, her mouth opening, a darting tongue. A faint smell of lavender hangs in the air of the yard. Either he is hallucinating or else she has opened his gift.
Sitting in his room, the steeple of Vor Frue Kirke visible in the upper rectangle of the window, he struggles to write her a letter. No words are forthcoming besides the salutation. Dear Abelone. My dear Miss Schultz. Dearest Miss Schultz. Beloved Abelone. My beloved Miss Schultz. Dear friend. He feels his mind to be unready after his illness. His judgement cannot yet be trusted to strike the proper tone and form of address that will reveal to her his intentions without being inappropriate.
The mistress encourages him to touch her. She demands payment for placing her skin at the disposal of his trembling fingertips. He draws her rags aside and his fingers explore. He whimpers and cannot find what he is looking for. He does not know what he is looking for. Love, perhaps? A quintessence of the female principle, concealed at the point where her legs meet? A wild animal? He looks up at her, but her face is like water, indistinct in the dingy corner of the serving house. He grabs her harshly, tears the rags from her body and forces his member inside her. Her buttocks part, and he feels her warm anus thrust against his pelvic bone. She looks up at him over her shoulder and laughs shamelessly. She lies spread across a table, her hands fumbling to grip its edge. He studies her closely. It is Miss Schultz, not the other one. Or is it? Is this love? he asks himself, then falls on the floor and wakes.
Dear Miss Schultz. I am now sufficiently restored as to be able to sense once more what is occurring and what has occurred during this recent time.
My gratitude to you is greater than I can express in words. I wish, therefore, to do so in action!
What then? What action? He crumples the paper in his hand. There are no more sheets. The ink pot is nearly dry and broken quill nibs lie all about, together with his crumpled attempts at formulation. He goes outside, crosses the yard and knocks on the door of the printer’s house. The maid ushers him in. He stands and waits in an anteroom on the ground floor, then is led upstairs to the printer’s office. He has no idea what intention has brought him here.
Schultz sits behind his desk, surrounded by heavy folios and stacks of books with gilded letters on the spines. He issues a sound to convey that he is aware of Morten’s presence and requires him to wait, but does not look up from his papers. Morten goes to the window and looks out. The view is an altered version of his own. The same walls, the same rooftops and chimneys, the steeple of Vor Frue Kirke protruding from the bare branches of the sycamore. He sees the window of his room, a surface darkened by reflection and allowing no view inside. The yard is white with snow, circular tracks of horse-drawn carts wind around the tree. Faintly, he hears the sound of the press.
It gladdens me that he has risen, says Schultz behind him.
He turns, then seats himself on the chair to which the printer’s hand
is extended.
I feel nearly fully restored.
We were worried about him. The printer’s eyebrows are raised high on his forehead, as though he has uttered something amusing or else expects Morten to do so. My eldest daughter especially has been con cerned for his well-being.
I hope I have not been the cause of unnecessary anxiety.
Not at all! Solicitude is in a woman’s nature and it is only healthy for young girls to be given a proper sense of life’s realities, to learn of the harshness that exists outside the protective walls of the home. Nevertheless, it is a good thing Mr Falck did not succumb. It would not have been beneficial to my daughter’s aspect on life.
Nor to my own, says Morten. The printer nods. They laugh. Morten makes note of two things: the printer has called him Falck and referred to his daughter as a woman.
No, I am genuinely happy to see him, says Schultz. It pleases me, really. We have become used to having him here with us. If he were no longer here, something would feel amiss. Anyway, was there something he wished to ask?
I have run out of paper and ink, he says. And quill nibs.
Aha! The student is at work on his thesis? When does he intend to conclude his studies?
This summer, if all goes well.
If he wishes to have the thesis printed and bound, he must come to me. A well-composed text will surely make an impression on his principals.
Thank you. I shall remember it.
There is a lull in the conversation, during which neither speaks. Schultz sits reclined in his high-backed chair considering him. His hands are folded on his stomach. He has dark eyes, Morten notices, and his powdered wig is placed on the desk. His own hair is gathered in a thin, grey pigtail at his nape.
Approach my bookkeeper, Kierulf. He will equip the student with whatever he might need.
Morten makes a third note: the printer mentions nothing of payment for these supplies.
He returns to his room with ink, pens, quality paper, envelopes and sealing wax enough to last him months. The desktop is scarred with deep grooves made by the penknife he has used to absently dig into the wood. He retrieves a blotting pad and spreads it out over the desk. He moves the desk to the window facing the yard so that he might look out over the rooftops as he works.
The Prophets of Eternal Fjord Page 5